The Daily Howler

Like so many other Republicans, [Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)] was looking for a way to pretend that Social Security’s day of reckoning was disturbingly near at hand. According to the CBO, Social Security can pay full benefits through the year 2052. But it’s hard to get people worked up about that, so fakers like Gregg keep torturing facts to produce a sense of impending disaster. …

The surplus will be getting smaller each year—but duh! At this point, it will still be a surplus! In 2015, the surplus will be $85 billion, which is bigger than the surplus this year! But Gregg wanted to produce a sense of disaster. So that’s when he started to torture his facts to produce a disturbing conclusion:

GREGG: This is significant because every dollar collected in payroll taxes is spent, including the surplus. So in 2011, when budget writers are looking at the fiscal 2012 budget, they can count on less Social Security dollars to pad other spending, and the rest of the budget will begin to feel the pinch.

That means defense, education, federal highways, environmental programs—every other area of government will be impacted.

This will happen not in 2018, not in 2042, but just six years from now when Congress will have to make choices between Social Security benefits and other programs. People need to understand this reality.

“People need to understand this reality,” Gregg said—even as he did his best to confuse, mislead and scare them. …

Say what? If you know anything at all about the SS debate, you know [this] claim is inaccurate. Everyone has read, a thousand times, the current projection of the SS trustees—the payroll tax will produce an annual surplus through the year 2018. The CBO says 2020.

The Nation | Blog | The Daily Outrage | Ari Berman

Amazingly, the Governator is taking PR cues from George W. Bush.

Last week the California Governor’s office admitted to sending at least five fake news segments hyping Arnold’s policies to local TV stations under the guise of real news. The mock news spots–sent out to stations in December–promote an end to mandatory lunch breaks for workers, cuts in the number of nurses at hospitals, a revised pay scheme for teachers and stricter tenure track for professors.

Here’s the Los Angeles Times’ description of the segments: “A written introduction offers suggested opening lines to be read by television news anchors. A state employee, who previously worked as a reporter for a Sacramento television station, is the narrator. Each video includes interviews with advocates for the proposals. The tapes do not acknowledge dissenting views or offer balance as required in news accounts.”

This much secrecy fails to protect Americans By MYRIAM MARQUEZ, Orlando Sentinel

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft changed the meaning of the Freedom of Information Act from a presumption of disclosure to a rationale for secrecy. In October 2001, he advised federal agencies not to release documents to the press or the public so long as they had any possible legal rationale to keep them hidden from public view. That memo was in the works even before the terrorist attack, which should give all Americans pause.

The memo was overkill. …

Accidents are more likely than terrorist attacks on [chemical] plants. Now people are more vulnerable, not less, because they haven’t a clue what risks they face. Until it’s too late. …

Emergency response teams know what’s in a rail car by a sign that’s posted on the side of the tank car detailing the deadly chemicals it might carry. Now federal agencies are considering removing those placards from all trains as a way to “protect” the public from terrorists with devious plans.

Rail workers, firefighters and other emergency workers aren’t too happy with the proposal. Even chemical companies prefer to keep the signs in public view. …

The problem with secrecy for security’s sake is that it doesn’t protect us. It simply spares the government any accountability to the public.

If citizens can’t know what train routes carry potentially poisonous materials, which nuclear plants are vulnerable or what underground pipelines are carrying through our towns, then we have no clue if our government is indeed keeping us safer from terrorists. The real threat is using secrecy to hide public-policy decisions that are supposed to keep us safe.

It’s a delicate balancing act, and right now the scales have tipped way too far, at our peril.

Guest opinion: Government openness ensures the consent of the governed – billingsgazette.com
By JOHN CORNYN, R-Texas
U.S. Senator

Just last month, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a longtime champion of open government at the federal level, and I joined forces to introduce the OPEN (Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National) Government Act of 2005, to strengthen and enhance our federal open government laws. It has been nearly a decade since Congress has approved major reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And the Senate Judiciary Committee has not convened an oversight hearing to monitor compliance with FOIA since 1992. So this week, I will chair a Senate hearing to examine needed improvements to our open government laws. …

After all, open government is not a Republican or a Democrat issue; it is an American issue. Indeed, the bill is supported by a broad coalition of open government advocates and organizations across the ideological spectrum.

Open government is a fundamental principle of our democracy. As President Lincoln once said, “No man is good enough to govern another without that person’s consent”-and of course, consent is meaningless if it is not informed consent. For that very reason, the cause of open government is as American as our commitment to constitutional democracy.
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Track S.394 OPEN Governement Act

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The “reporter” covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department’s office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed HUNDREDS of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration’s efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source. …

A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.

One Christian feeling hijacked by politics By Gena Caponi Tabery

I live in a country that is increasingly eager to challenge its citizens’ loyalty, among people of faith increasingly determined to dispute the faith of others. Some people who call themselves Christians – and some church leaders – are beginning to redefine Christianity in such a way as to exclude worshipers with whom they disagree. I fear a religion in which ideology is more important than theology.

If someone – like me – who has worshiped as a Christian for more than 50 years suddenly feels afraid of the extremes of that religion – what must it be like for those of different beliefs, or of unbelief? …

If I question political decisions, am I un-American? If I don’t agree with a fundamentalist, am I un-Christian? …

Nowadays, so many people are looking for a fight. I’m not. Neither am I afraid to pray in public. But I am afraid of my faith being hijacked to promote someone else’s political agenda. I am afraid of my faith being used as a weapon in a crusade against anyone who dares to think or believe differently. … I don’t want to be mistaken for a hijacker

alibi . march 3 – 9, 2005
A Culture of Secrecy
What has happened to the principle that American democracy should be accessible and transparent?
By Charles Lewis

For the most part, there is little appetite for investigative journalism. For the “suits” who control what we read, see and hear, besides potentially alienating the political power structure against their own company or industry, thereby possibly jeopardizing millions of dollars in future profits, this edgy enterprise journalism is not efficient or cost-effective. It simply takes too much time, requires too much money and incurs too many legal and other risks. Forget whether or not this is fair or accurate, or relevant given the civic obligation broadcasters and publishers have to the communities they ostensibly serve. It simply is, and it helps to explain why today we have so little independent, critical reporting and why instead we are mostly fed a steady diet of pap from morning to night.

The problem is made worse by the presence of brilliant communications tacticians in the White House who cleverly frame their controversial policy agendas, setting up the class’s stenography assignment for the day with bold, positive names: “No Child Left Behind,” the “USA Patriot Act,” the “Clear Skies” environmental policy, the “Healthy Forests Initiative.” Needless to say, such Orwellian word ploys–exacerbated by largely docile, straight news coverage–slip devilishly into common usage, leaving the public ill-equipped, unprotected and vulnerable to breathtaking, unabashed manipulation.
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Lewis, a former TV news producer, founded The Center for Public Integrity in 1990